PSEi falls ahead of long weekend

The benchmark stock index fell on Friday, tracking regional sell-offs triggered by a plunge in China, profit-taking and continued concerns over a likely US rate hike next month.

The Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) lost 136.18 points or 1.93 percent to 6,927.07, while the wider All Shares index also fell by 59.69 points or 1.47 percent to 3,996.91.

Juan Rafael T. Supangco, research head at Angping & Associates Securities Inc., said that along with the news on China, investors were also reacting to a recent MSCI rebalancing to take effect next week.

“The rebalancing was announced on November 12, but the implementation date was by the end of the month. Since there is no trading on Monday, investors were mainly affected on the MSCI review,” Supangco said.

Nisha Alicer of DA Market Securities Inc. and Astro del Castillo of First Grade Finance Inc., meanwhile, both said the PSEi corrected from a recent rally as investors opted to cash out on gains ahead of the long weekend.

“Market continues to show tepid activity amid lack of catalysts and caution ahead of the December 15 and 16 Federal Reserve policy meet. We continue to be range-bound in a downtrend given the same factors of strengthening the dollar, capital outflow,” Alicer said.

“Points of interest ahead would be the next two IPOs [initial public offering],” she added.
Italpinas Development Corp. and DM Wenceslao are scheduled to list at the PSE on December 7 and 8, respectively.

Holding firms suffered the most — down by 2.57 percent — among the sub-indices that all declined on Friday.

Robinsons Land Corp. and Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company were the only advancers among the most active stocks, given upgrades in weight in the MSCI data.
Losers outnumbered gainers, 111 to 60, while 45 issues were unchanged. Total volume reached 719.9 million shares amounting to P16.417 billion.